Chartiers Valley To Students: Please Review Our School Lunches

The food service team at Chartiers Valley hopes to improve school lunches and breakfasts by getting daily feedback from students and parents.

Late last year, the district quietly began using Nutrislice, an online menu system that provides parents with information about school meals, including ingredients, macronutrients, and potential allergens. The app also lets students rate meals on a 1- to 5- star system and provide additional feedback.

“We’d like to the get to the point where we get more feedback from the kids,” said Brenda Wineland, of The Nutrition Group, Chartiers Valley’s food service contractor. “We want to know what they like and what they don’t like.”

The app will be especially useful for parents of children with food allergies, as it allows users to screen out foods that contain certain ingredients. If a child has an egg allergy, for example, the homemade meatloaf would be crossed out of the daily menu. This system could also aid cafeteria workers in ensuring that younger children do not inadvertently purchase foods with allergens.

Although Nutrislice doesn’t have the stick-to-the-fridge convenience of a printed monthly lunch menu, the app allows the food service team to tweak menus in real time as needed.

Nutrislice is available for smartphones, tablets, and through a web browser.